354 Forestry Quarterly. 



as Instructor of Forestry at Yale, and later as Assistant Professor 

 of Forestry at Harvard University. 



One of the early and successful campaigns of the old Division 

 of Forestry was in persuading the railroad companies that the 

 chestnut oak timber which was cut for bark in the Appalachian 

 region was entirely suitable for ties, and since the railroads have 

 been convinced of this fact they have accepted chestnut oak on a 

 par with white oak. As the supply of white oak ties has dimin- 

 ished, the railroads have been urged to use inferior woods of sev- 

 eral kinds and to make them serviceable by preservative treatment, 

 and it is interesting to note that the efforts along this line are at 

 last bearing fruit. The Pennsylvania Railroad, for example, is 

 using treated black gum ties in the New York Tunnels, and is 

 carrying on experiments with loblolly pine, beech, maple, and other 

 hitherto unused or rarely used woods on the main line. The softer 

 woods and even the gum ties in the tunnels are being protected by 

 large flat tie plates and screw spikes. Other roads are evidently 

 working along the same line, as evidenced by the statistics in the 

 recently published circular of the United States Bureau of Census 

 and the United States Forest Service, which show that the pur- 

 chases of gum ties in the United States during 1908 exceeded 

 260,000, while but 15,000 were reported in the previous year. The 

 purchases of beech ties in 1908 amounted to nearly 193,000, 

 against 51,000 in 1907. European roads are able to get 20 to 30 

 years' service from creosoted beech cross-ties by giving them pre- 

 servative treatment and proper protection, and while the traffic 

 and wheel loads are heavier in the United States, it should be pos- 

 sible to get considerable longer service from treated beech and 

 similar woods than from the untreated oak which has been pre- 

 viously used. 



Cross-ties under the present schedule are admitted from the 

 United States into France under the minimum tariff, and the 

 French custom duty on untreated ties imported direct from an 

 American to a French port is 19.3 cents per long ton for ties that 

 exceed 3.1496 inches in diameter. Treated ties pay the above 

 rate plus 20%. Since the duty is not prohibitive, the United States 

 Consular Office sent a communication to French railroad com- 

 panies and to leading contractors inquiring whether they would be 



